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Hunt the hormones

23 March 2002

IT’S A beguiling tale. Frightening, too. Oestrogen compounds excreted by women taking the contraceptive pill are getting into the rivers of Europe and North America. Millions of male fish are turning female. And humans? We drink water from those same rivers. And aren’t our sperm counts declining and our fertility clinics full to overflowing?

The story returned to the front pages in Britain at the weekend, with the reported discovery that half the roach in English rivers show some signs of a sex change. With it came the suggestion that a synthetic oestrogen called ethinyloestradiol, which is widely used in …